Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Cu—Co—Ni—Si alloy for an electronic component suitable for electronic components, particularly, connectors, battery terminals, jacks, relays, switches, lead frames, and the like.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, generally, as materials for electrical and electronic equipment, in addition to iron-based materials, copper-based materials such as phosphor bronze, red brass, and brass having excellent electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity has been also widely used. In recent years, a demand for the miniaturization, weight reduction, and higher functionality of electrical and electronic equipment and further higher density mounting accompanying these has increased, and various characteristics have also been required of copper-based materials applied to these.
With the miniaturization of components, the thinning of materials advances, and the improvement of material strength is required. In applications such as relays, the demand for fatigue characteristics increases, and the improvement of strength is necessary. In addition, with the miniaturization of components, the conditions when a material is subjected to bending work become severe, and the material is required to have excellent bending workability while having high strength. Further, after the material is worked into a component, heat may be generated with an increase in the amount of electric current passed, and the improvement of electrical conductivity is required from the viewpoint of heat generation suppression.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-007666 discloses a Cu—Ni—Co—Si-based alloy having an excellent balance of bending workability, strength, and electrical conductivity, in which R{200} is 0.3 or more when the diffraction intensity from the (111) face on the sheet surface is I{111}, the diffraction intensity from the (200) face is I{200}, the diffraction intensity from the (220) face is I{220}, the diffraction intensity from the (311) face is I{311}, and the proportion of the diffraction intensity from the (200) face in these diffraction intensities is R{200}=I{200}/{I{111}+I{200}+I{220}+I{311}}.
International Publication No. WO 2011/068124 discloses a copper alloy sheet material for electrical and electronic components according to the present invention having high strength and good bending workability and moreover having high electrical conductivity and specifically discloses a technique that achieves both strength and bending workability by obtaining an area ratio of less than 10% for crystal grains having a deviation angle from the Cube orientation (orientation difference) of less than 15° and obtaining an area ratio of 15% or more for crystal grains having a deviation angle from the Cube orientation of 15 to 30° in the results of measurement by a SEM-EBSD method.